


We Make the Road by Walking It

by dyad (johnnycake)



Series: In the Bleak Midwinter... [1]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Consumption, F/M, World War 1, child abuse implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 13:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20228797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnnycake/pseuds/dyad
Summary: Tommy comes home from war and finds out something terrible has happened while he was away.





	We Make the Road by Walking It

**Author's Note:**

> first of all: greta jurossi and miri jurossi are two different people pretty much. miri does take greta's place and they share a last name and have a sister named kitty and they die of consumption and tommy is in love with them, but that's where the similarities end.
> 
> second: miri is romani. her father is abusive. she and tommy have known each other since they were children. and have been together since before tommy left for france (since she was 15 and tommy was 16). polly is pretty much her adoptive mother, since her own is abusive too, and polly sees her as her daughter. 
> 
> finally: i have one other idea for the two of them, but after that idk what or if i'm gonna write anymore for them or this fandom. i do love tommy/grace as well, but i don't really have any fanfic ideas for them. i might just write out some of their scenes from the show because yes. but we'll see. 
> 
> anyway, enjoy!!

It had been three years that Tommy was gone away to war. Three years. He knew the exact amount of time. He knew the months and weeks and days right down to the minute and the second and could recite all of those if asked, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to remember a single second of the life he’d lived when he’d been in France. He wanted to forget it all. He wanted to drown it in whiskey and opium and cigarettes and the smell of the Birmingham smog in the mornings in Small Heath.

He wanted to forget all of it.

Except the letters.

And the feeling those letters gave him.

The letters and the girl who had been writing them.

Tommy had known Miri Jurossi since they’d both been in primary school together. He’d been six and she had been five when he’d first approached her because she had a big bruise on her face. Later he’d learned this was because her father beat her. Not long after that, he’d found out the reason the other kids picked on her was because she was a gypsy. Tommy was only half gypsy, but the other kids didn’t know that until that day. Then they’d begun picking on him too. And Miri had quickly become his only friend outside of his brothers.

Tommy fell in love with Miri when he was thirteen and she was twelve. He didn’t quite realize he was in love with her until a year later when his horse died. He ran to her caravan in the rain while her family was away in London for the weekend and screamed and cried in arms. She told him everything was going to be alright.

He believed her.

That was how he knew he loved her.

He hadn’t believed anyone else. But Miri...Miri, he’d believed.

She had written to him all the while he’d been gone and he’d written back, telling her everything that was going on in France. It was the only thing that kept him sane. That and rereading her letters over and over until he’d memorized each and every one of them. He’d kept them in his shirt, right over his heart. He’d slept with his hand over them, dreaming of Miri every time. A thousand times he’d thought about telling her he loved her in his letters back to her and every time he decided against it. How unfair would it be to tell her that he loved her if he died while in France? It just seemed like bad luck. So he didn’t do it. He read her letters. And reread them. He wrote back to her. He waited for the war to be over. He waited to come home.

He stood in his bedroom in his house in Small Heath now, staring in the mirror, smoothing down his hair, straightening and restraightening his clothes, trying to make himself look perfect.

Today was the first day he was seeing Miri in three years.

And he was more nervous now than he’d ever been in the trenches.

What Miri thought of him was, at the moment, a much more frightening prospect than being blown to bits by mortars or shredded by shrapnel.

They were holding a homecoming party with their family, Danny Whizz-Bang, Freddie Thorne, and Jeremiah. The only strange part about the whole thing was Miri hadn’t arrived yet. Tommy had known Miri since they were children. The fact she wasn’t already there when Polly brought them all home from the train station was more than a little unusual.

He turned away from the mirror, opening his door and going down the stairs to find Polly.

She was sitting in the kitchen, having a cigarette and a Scotch and talking with Ada, smiling.

That was the first thing that was wrong. Polly was drinking this early in the day. And not just drinking. She was having a Scotch. Polly didn’t drink Scotch.

Tommy swallowed and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Polly, where’s Miri?”

Polly’s smile faltered. “She’ll be around later.” She said this as she leaned forward tapping her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray in the center of the table, not looking at Tommy as she spoke.

Tommy clenched his jaw.

“Alright,” he said to the kitchen, “everyone out. Get out.”

Polly still didn’t look at him as everyone got up and walked out of the kitchen. He closed the doors behind them, wishing he had some sheets to stuff under the door so no one could listen in either.

“Polly, where’s Miri?” he asked again.

“I told you,” Polly replied, her voice firmer now, “she’ll be round –”

“No, that’s not like her,” he said, cutting Polly off. “She would’ve been here helping set up. Hours before everyone else. Where is she, Pol?”

Polly shook her head, looking suddenly very sad. “You don’t want to do this now, Thomas,” she said, her voice horribly quiet. “Not today. Not when you’ve just gotten home. She’ll be around later.” She looked up at him again. “Isn’t that good enough?”

Now Tommy _really_ wanted to know. And he was worried. What had happened? It had to be bad if Polly wasn’t telling him. “Did –” he had to pause and swallow; he could hardly get the words out, “did her father do something to her?”

Polly sucked on her cigarette. “Nothing more than usual,” she replied. “Please, Thomas. You don’t need to know this today.”

“For the love of Christ, Pol, you’re scaring me to death!” Tommy half shouted, slamming his hands down on the table. “Tell me! Tell me right now or I’ll go down to the gypsy camp and just ask her myself! Why isn’t Miri here?!”

Polly looked up at him, speaking a little louder herself as she said, “Miri isn’t here, Thomas, because Miri only has the strength to make the walk from the gypsy camp to our home every few days.” Her hands were shaking this time as she brought her cigarette to her lips.

Tommy’s brows pulled themselves together. He straightened, drawing his hand down his mouth. “She’s sick?” His stomach twisted with worry. “Is it the flu?”

“Sit down, Thomas,” Polly said, indicating the chair next to her with a nod of her head, her hand with cigarette gesturing. “You’re going to want to be sitting for this.”

Tommy shook his head. “I’m not sitting down, Pol. Just bloody tell me.”

Polly looked at him, speaking in the louder voice again as she said, “She has consumption, Tommy. She’s had it for nine months.”

Tommy sucked in a breath, his eyes widening slightly in shock and fear, his hands beginning to shake as he staggered back several steps. He wanted to believe more than anything that this was just some sick joke, but he could tell from the destroyed look on Polly’s face that it wasn’t. This was the truth. And Polly wouldn’t lie to him anyway. Not about something like this.

Without speaking, he turned on his heel and ran out of the house. He ran all the way to the gypsy camp and pounded on the door of the Jurossi caravan. “Miri!” he called, his fist hitting the wooden door so hard, he was shocked it didn’t go through it.

It took Miri a long time to come to the door, but finally, he heard the sound of the door unlocking and then it slowly opened and Tommy didn’t even have to ask if it was true. He could tell just from the way Miri looked.

She was thin. Much thinner than she’d been when he’d left. She had circles under her eyes so black they looked like bruises, like she hadn’t slept in weeks. Her face was red and sweating from fever, but beneath that it was so pale and gaunt it made his stomach drop. And she shook. It was clear even just standing took great effort and all of her weight was pressed up against the door. It was all that was keeping her upright at the moment.

To his surprise, when she saw him, her face broke into a brilliant smile that still, somehow, managed to break through the agony of her disease and made her look radiant. “Tommy,” she breathed. “Oh Tommy, you’re back! You’re back! I missed you so much!”

But she didn’t move. Just another hint to how sick she was.

If she let go of the door, she was going to collapse and she knew it.

Something broke inside Tommy, something that had remained unbroken even through France.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, stepping into the caravan, taking Miri’s too-hot face between his hands, managing to sound desperate and ruined and betrayed all at once.

Miri’s smile vanished and her eyes searched his. “Tell you what?” she asked quietly.

“That you’re sick?” in the same tone of voice. He blinked back the tears threatening to form. He shook his head just once, his chest still heaving from running all the way there. “You-you never...told me.”

Miri closed her mouth and swallowed. She swayed on her feet, moments from collapsing. The only things keeping her upright, the door and Tommy’s hands on either side of her face. “I’m-I’m not just sick, Tommy,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Tommy’s stomach dropped. He knew what she was going to say before she said it.

He closed his eyes. He couldn’t hear this. He couldn’t let himself hear this.

“I’m dying.”

This time it was hope that Tommy felt fall apart inside him. The last of whatever hope he’d retained inside himself since France vanished with Miri’s words.

He turned away from her, letting out a cry as he slammed his fist as hard as he could into the side of the caravan. He did it again and again until his knuckles went numb, but it wasn’t enough. He turned to the table and swept everything off it, watching it all clatter to the floor and skid across it. And yet that still wasn’t enough so he grabbed the empty pot on the stove and threw it across the room as well. It ricocheted off the back wall and crashed to the floor.

He was surprised none of what he’d just done seemed to have any effect on the caravan at all.

Miri had closed the door, but she was standing by the table, clutching the back of a chair to keep herself upright, watching all of this.

She swallowed hard. “Why do you care, Tommy?” she asked quietly, her voice just as soft as before. “Why does it matter to you if I’m dying?”

Tommy turned around and crossed the caravan in three long strides. He put one hand on her cheek and he kissed her hard, backing her up into the wall, throwing out an arm to brace himself against. He relaxed slightly, his shoulders slumping, feeling at peace – however briefly – for the first time since he’d gone to France.

Miri pulled away after a moment to gasp. He expected her to tell him to get out to push him away, but she did something even more inexplicable.

“Tommy,” she whispered, “I love you too.”

And she kissed him again.

On her lips Tommy could taste blood and death and honey and rain and all of his bittersweet feelings about every second of this moment.

_She’s going to die soon_, he thought, the words running through his head over and over again.

_She’s going to die soon. She’s going to die soon. She’s going to die soon._

And even worse: _And there’s nothing you can do to stop it._

Never in his life had Tommy wished as desperately as he did then for more time.

**Author's Note:**

> i am rly happy with how this turned out. originally it was gonna go a completely different way, but then me and my bf did a different scenario rp than the one we originally did and this happened and i like this version a lot better. anyway, i might turn this into a full length fanfic, so if ya have any suggestions for a second chapter, feel free to comment them below!!


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